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Overview

This book provides a fascinating history of sexuality in twentieth-century Europe and North America. Angus McLaren draws upon legal, medical and literary sources to demonstrate how modern sexuality has been shaped by race, class, gender and generational preoccupations.

"McLaren's book is to be highly recommended as a generaltextbook which illuminates the evolving debates and practicesconcerned with twentieth-century sexuality. Both undergraduates andprofessional historians will find it useful as is lays out theevidence and provides copious footnotes to help with furtherexploration of the topic." History

"... the book is stuffed full of goodies ... written inMcLaren's usual readable style." American HistoricalReview

"In Twentieth Century Sexuality: A History, Angus McLarensucceeds in accomplishing exactly what his title promises; toprovide a history of twentieth century sexuality. And in theprocess of reaching this ambitious goal, he gives us vaststimulation and food for thought.

"McLaren has therefore written a very important book and onethat crackles with insights while being as comprehensive as can beimagined. As such, the work is quite unique." Journal of SocialHistory

"Angus McLaren's ability to provide an overview of as complex atopic as sexuality in the mercurial twentieth-century is trulyoutstanding. In this book, he summarizes - with wit as well ashistorical accuracy - many of the key issues that have shapedsexual identity throughout the last century." MedicalHistory

"Writing in clear, well-organized prose, he is mindful of theinfluences of popular culture and media on sexual attitudes. Thebook succeeds best as a broad-ranging survey of Western Europeanand Anglo-American attitudes." Publishers Weekly

"Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History ...seeks toexplore its topic in its quintessential complexity." Journal ofFamily Studies

Publishers Weekly
- Publisher's Weekly

In the past three decades, historians and sociologists have increasingly used sex and sexuality as a vehicle to explain and interpret society, politics and human behavior. McLaren's ambitious book surveys nearly 100 years of sexual practices, attitudes and social policies in an attempt to construct a cohesive history of the ebb and flow of periods of relative sexual freedom followed by the backlash of repression. Using this model of "sexual panics," he discusses such issues as masturbation, race eugenics, the invention of psychoanalysis, sexology and the rise of feminism; the influence of marriage manuals, and of Kinsey's sexual research; the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and the response of the media and government to AIDS; feminist debates about pornography and the rise of a politics of "family values." Writing in clear, well-organized prose, he is mindful of the influences of popular culture and media on sexual attitudes, and draws widely and informatively upon such diverse sources as Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup and the television show Ellen. The book succeeds best as a broad-ranging survey of Western European and Anglo-American attitudes. But while his narrative of the dialectic between freedom and repression is very convincing, his survey of sexual and political trends in nearly 10 countries over 100 years misses volumes of specific detail that could have made this chronicle more gripping. (June)

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Meet the Author

Angus McLaren is Professor of History at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada and Associate Editor of the Journal of the History of Sexuality. He has taught at the University of Calgary and has been a Visiting Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford and Clare Hall, Cambridge. He is the author of A History of Contraception and has also researched widely on the history of abortion, eugenics and twentieth century sexuality.

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